News from the Heights

Le Moyne College Hosts Talk on Modern-Day Slavery

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (For Immediate Release) … Le Moyne College hosts historian and activist James Brewer Stewart on Tuesday, April 10, at 7 p.m. in Grewen Auditorium. His talk is titled "Abolishing Slavery in Lincoln's Time and Ours: Toward the development of a 21st Century Abolitionist Movement."

By some estimates there as many as 35 million enslaved people around the world today, some of them in our local communities. This figure is triple the number of enslaved in the Western Hemisphere when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Back in Lincoln's day, slavery provoked strenuous moral and political opposition. The abolitionist movement of that time was grass-roots, militant, headline grabbing and extremely well organized. Today, no such movement exists. We instead wring our hands. Protests in favor of the humane treatment of our pets and other animals are much more visible than are protests over slavery. Why is this? What might be done to change it? How might we actually mobilize a new, grass-roots abolitionist movement?

James Brewer Stewart, James Wallace Professor of History Emeritus, Macalester College, retired in 2007 after four decades of teaching, writing and consulting on problems of slavery and emancipation in the history of the Western Hemisphere. He has written or edited 11 books and over 50 articles on these subjects and co- edits a book series devoted to the history of antislavery throughout the Atlantic world. Since retiring he has created Historians Against Slavery, an international organization of over 700 historians that promotes scholarship, teaching and activism in opposition to modern slavery and in support of modern abolition movements.

The lecture is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the history department, Center for Peace and Global Studies, dean of arts and sciences, department of English, Office of Mission and Identity, Sanzone Center for Catholic Studies and Theological Reflection, Office of Campus Ministry and the Lecture Committee. For more information, call 445-4477.

ThinkProgress.org includes Le Moyne as one of 11 institutions across the country that "...are taking concrete steps to amend their policies, expand their training programs, and let new students know they want to improve" as it relates to sexual assaults.